Tales From SYL Ranch
Sunday, May 28, 20:00-22:00 UTC

This week, we’re taking a break from the Old Fan’s Commentary. Don’t worry, it will return. We’ve already got several episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and The Animated Series recorded. We’re holding back Superman for its 40th Anniversary. Close Encounters Of the Third Kind will be along soon.

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There’s also a Commentary for ▥▥▥▥ ▥▥▥▥ ▥▥▥▥ ▥▥▥▥▥ ▥▥ ▥▥▥▥ ▥▥▥▥ ▥▥▥ ▥▥▥▥▥ coming up. We’ve no idea when. We’re just making it up as we go along.

Television was a nascent industry, and entirely black-and-white. Some homes had TVs, but never more than one. They produced a grainy, low-definition, analog, broadcast-quality picture. The signal could be destroyed by all manner of nearby electromagnetic activity. Running the vacuum cleaner would obliterate the picture. Nearby storms would do the same. If you were too close or too far from a station’s transmitter, the picture would become filled with static.

Arvin Table Radio, Model_480-TFM

Radio was king, however it suffered from the same problems as television. Sound quality would be unacceptable by modern standards.

As with modern television, networks provided shows to local affiliates. These shows were exactly the same as today’s TV. There were news programs, daytime soap-operas, dramas, situation comedies, cop shows, detective shows, and science fiction. They had similar stories, told through sound rather than video.

There were advertisers as there are today. In two of Sunday’s episodes, the advertisements are included. You’ll immediately recognize one sponsor that’s still in business.

Of science fiction, there were two undisputed kings: Dimension X and X-Minus One.

Dimension X aired 50 weekly episodes from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. X-Minus One aired 126 weekly episodes from April 22, 1955 to January 9, 1958.

X-Minus One Advertisement

X-Minus One was essentially a re-mounting of Dimension X with many of the same production personnel. One can almost speak of both series in the same breath.

Both featured half-hour adaptations of the best science fiction short-stories then published, from the premiere SF magazines of the time: Astounding and later Galaxy magazines.

Famous names include Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, H. Beam Piper, and a host of others. I strongly encourage you to listen to both series. All episodes are in the public domain and are easily-accessible on the Internet Archive.

Most stories are of excellent quality. As nearly all originate with the best authors of the day, stories hold up well and can easily be translated to modern times.

Audio quality varies. Some episodes only survive because someone with a wire recorder captured from the radio speaker itself. On Tales From SYL Ranch, we try and bring you episodes that survive from the studio masters.

Mars Of 1950

Mars in 1950

Until telescopes improved and probes sent to Mars, some of the best scientists of the day thought that Mars might be habitable and/or inhabited. Until the mid-1960s, many serious science fiction stories about a habitable Mars were written.

It’s little-known, but Gene Roddenberry‘s 1965 pitch for Star Trek limited the Enterprise‘s explorations to “planets approximating Earth-Mars conditions, life and social orders.”

Arguably the the most famous Mars story is Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. To attempt to describe it is impossible. We strongly recommend that you read it.

While the locale of Mars has long-since been rendered problematic, the story holds up well. If one simply substitutes an extra-Solar Earth-like planet for Mars, the plot and story could be written today.

Chesley Bonestell’s Mars Rocketpad

Some projections of technology are also now problematic. It’s worth noting that Bradbury predicted the Smart Home, though in a more esoteric fashion than we see today. As always, one must remember that writers were projecting forward from 1950s technology. They could never have dreamt of the technological wonderland of 2017.

Aside from that, one simply has to use one’s imagination a bit more. Good Old-Time Radio shows let the listener follow the action via sound effects. Mediocre and bad ones (with the exception of Dragnet) narrated.

The only narration Sunday is in “The Martian Chronicles.” That’s forgivable given the impossible task of reducing multiple short-stories and novellas to a half-hour show.

A family gathered around their radio.

So sit back and transport yourself to another era where radio was king. Imagine sitting in the living room, the family crowded around the radio, listening in earnest to The Martian Chronicles.

Update, Sat Jun 3 17:58:46 UTC 2017:

As a consequence of the following videos, I’ve added a libertarian rant. It cost me three of the regular tracks, as time was very tight.

Episode III:
The Old Fan’s Commentary OnThe Star Wars Holiday Special

My brain hurts. Just watching this was a chore. I’ve now seen it five times in my life, which was five too many. I can’t even introduce it properly because it’s terrible in ways that are beyond description.

Carrie Fisher was out of her mind on blow.

I wouldn’t watch it in advance, despite the fact that I’ll be streaming it from a YouTube version that’s been available for years. In this case, I strongly advise that you pay attention to my commentary rather than the Holiday Special.

It’s really bad. It’s not so bad it’s good, it’s just bad.

Mark Hamill was recovering from a car accident that severely injured his face.

It was bad when I first saw it in 1978. It only aired once and never again. It has never been released on any form of home video or official streaming. It survives because by 1978, people were starting to buy VCRs.

The Holiday Special is so bad that George Lucas has disowned it, saying:

“If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.”

I have no idea.

Fortunately (or not) for posterity, the Internet means that it will never die.

This commentary is about my feelings when seeing this bizarre monstrosity for the first time. It’s the only kind of commentary I can make.

I’ll not be playing The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy this week. The Holiday Special is about 1:40. I was faced with the choice of either leaving in H2G2 and stretching this madness into two weeks; or save your sanity by bumping H2G2.

It’s 1978. Everything we’ve come to take for granted didn’t exist. There was no streaming, no Blurays, no DVDs, no CDs, no personal computers of note, no Internet, and even the telephone was only a land-line to your house. VCRs were beginning to hit the market. Cassette tapes had become the medium of choice for personal music.

Star Wars had hit a year before and changed everything. There were no summer blockbusters before Star Wars. There were no gigantic merchandising enterprises before Star Wars. There was no science fiction of note except very, very infrequently before Star Wars.

When the Special aired around US Thanksgiving, Lucas was at work on the sequel to Star Wars. I don’t recall if he’d named it at that time. I’d been actively in fandom for at least a year, having joined Star Base Andromeda by then.

While we thought it odd that there would be a holiday-themed special in Star Wars, it could work. The notion of a Wookiee Life Day — if fleshed-out — could be a parallel to Christmas.

What we got was incomprehensible. There were really only two good things about it:

The entire main cast was in it. According to Harrison Ford, it was stipulated in their contracts and they had no legal way out.

Really. It’s all in there — and more. It’s rather indescribable, hence the commentary.

We’ll be streaming the video via YouTube, so feel free to follow along. Again, I advise not watching in advance, nor listening to anything other than my commentary. It’s quite possible to go mad attempting to figure this out.

If you want to follow along, the video is right here; or you can see it at:

As usual, I’ll have The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and topical music by Maestro John Williams sprinkled throughout.

Star Wars original title crawl.

As with last week’s Episode I, I’m streaming the film if you wish to follow along. I wouldn’t ordinarily do that, but I’m commenting on The Despecialized Edition.

The Despecialized Edition is a fan restoration that lovingly returns the film to nearly the theatrical version. Every shot has been color-corrected, as LucasFilm has never gotten the color right. All scenes added after 1977 have been removed. The original Fox logo and fanfare, original LucasFilm logo, and the original title crawl have been restored.

My HD copy is as close as you can come to a pristine copy of the film reels on opening night.

I’ll not be streaming in HD, nor will the stream be available except during the live show. If you want it (and I highly recommend it) ,find it it the way I did. Bittorrent is your friend.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live Sundays on //aNONradio.net// 20:00-22:00 UTC. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

As always, to set the stage:

It’s 1977. Everything we’ve come to take for granted didn’t exist. There was no streaming, no MP3s, no Internet, no personal computers of note. Powerful computers were the size of a warehouse and were only owned by governments, universities, and very large businesses.

Even phones were radically different. There was only one kind: the land-line to your house.

I was 12 years old — the precise target demographic of Star Wars.

I first saw Star Wars a few days after it opened. One has to recall that this was before Star Wars was a phenomenon. Where today one might spend all day in line for an opening, no one knew anything about Star Wars.

I don’t remember much about that first screening because it was totally eclipsed by my second.

The first screening was in an average-sized theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Theaters at that time were generally converted from live theaters and seated several hundred people at least.

The theater was jam-packed. By then, word-of-mouth had spread and people were coming back for additional showings.

One must remember that at that time, there was no home video nor streaming. Films were released for a limited run, and then never again. If you wanted to see a movie, you saw it in a theater or not at all. This partly accounts for Star Wars‘ success. It was so much fun that people flocked back to the theaters rather than miss seeing it a second, third, fourth, or fifth time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Star Wars in the last forty years. It may well number in the thousands. I’ve watched it multiple times every year.

Star Wars is my favorite film of all time. Despite being a Trekkie almost from birth, Star Wars is a film that I can watch my entire life and never get bored.

My first screening of the film completely astonished me. This was totally brand new. There had certainly been space-opera adventures before, but nothing like this. The special effects were simply groundbreaking. The story is probably the perfect Hero’s Journey and never gets old.

As I say, I remember little from the first screening other than being completely blown away. I watched it with my father and best friend and remember walking out of the theater saying to my friend:

“Wow. That was way better than Logan’s Run.”

Keep in mind that pre-Star Wars, there was very little science fiction, neither in films nor television. Star Wars changed everything. After that, there has been a non-stop torrent of science fiction. Logan’s Run was the most recent SF film of note, also with groundbreaking special effects.

They couldn’t hold a candle to Star Wars.

However, my first screening became irrelevant after my second. I watched it at the Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Sadly, it was demolished in 2001. It’s now a hospital parking lot.

In 1977, it was still in its heyday — and it had a CinemaScope screen.

A CinemaScope theater.

You’re probably unfamiliar with CinemaScope. It was a very short-lived widescreen format which had a huge curved screen. The effect was the create a more immersive experience by attempting to cover the viewer’s periphery.

Boy, did it ever.

The interior auditorium of the Indian Hills was circular in shape and seated 810 patrons, with 662 on the main floor and 148 on the balcony.

When I arrived for my second showing, the house was already packed. There was absolutely nowhere to sit except dead-center of the front row.

In modern theaters, one avoids such seats due to severe parallax distortion. The Indian Hills, however, had a significant distance between the front row and the screen.

I saw in the front row, dead center …

It was an experience I’ll never forget. The curved screen made it completely fill my field of view, including my periphery.

The experience was barely describable — which is part of why I’m making the commentary. I actually became nauseous during the Trench Run.

To follow along with the amazing adventure of a 12-year-old watching Star Wars in CinemaScope, go to:

As usual, I’ll have The Hitchiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and topical music by Maestro John Williams sprinkled throughout.

This time around, I made a very conscious effort to speak in my General American accent. Additionally, in the immortal words of my Junior High drama teacher, I have “dropped my jaw and enunciated.”

Hopefully this will make for a better listening experience.

I’m also streaming the film if you wish to follow along. I wouldn’t ordinarily do that, but I’m commenting on The Despecialized Edition.

The Despecialized Edition is a fan restoration that lovingly returns the film to nearly the theatrical version. Every shot has been color-corrected, as LucasFilm has never gotten the color right. All scenes added after 1977 have been removed. The original Fox logo and fanfare, original LucasFilm logo, and the original title crawl have been restored.

My HD copy is as close as you can come to a pristine copy of the film reels on opening night.

I’ll not be streaming in HD, nor will the stream be available except during the live show. If you want it (and I highly recommend it) ,find it it the way I did. Bittorrent is your friend.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live Sundays on //aNONradio.net// 20:00-22:00 UTC. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

As always, to set the stage:

It’s 1977. Everything we’ve come to take for granted didn’t exist. There was no streaming, no MP3s, no Internet, no personal computers of note. Powerful computers were the size of a warehouse and were only owned by governments, universities, and very large businesses.

Even phones were radically different. There was only one kind: the land-line to your house.

I was 12 years old — the precise target demographic of Star Wars.

I first saw Star Wars a few days after it opened. One has to recall that this was before Star Wars was a phenomenon. Where today one might spend all day in line for an opening, no one knew anything about Star Wars.

I don’t remember much about that first screening because it was totally eclipsed by my second.

The first screening was in an average-sized theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Theaters at that time were generally converted from live theaters and seated several hundred people at least.

The theater was jam-packed. By then, word-of-mouth had spread and people were coming back for additional showings.

One must remember that at that time, there was no home video nor streaming. Films were released for a limited run, and then never again. If you wanted to see a movie, you saw it in a theater or not at all. This partly accounts for Star Wars‘ success. It was so much fun that people flocked back to the theaters rather than miss seeing it a second, third, fourth, or fifth time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Star Wars in the last forty years. It may well number in the thousands. I’ve watched it multiple times every year.

Star Wars is my favorite film of all time. Despite being a Trekkie almost from birth, Star Wars is a film that I can watch my entire life and never get bored.

My first screening of the film completely astonished me. This was totally brand new. There had certainly been space-opera adventures before, but nothing like this. The special effects were simply groundbreaking. The story is probably the perfect Hero’s Journey and never gets old.

As I say, I remember little from the first screening other than being completely blown away. I watched it with my father and best friend and remember walking out of the theater saying to my friend:

“Wow. That was way better than Logan’s Run.”

Keep in mind that pre-Star Wars, there was very little science fiction, neither in films nor television. Star Wars changed everything. After that, there has been a non-stop torrent of science fiction. Logan’s Run was the most recent SF film of note, also with groundbreaking special effects.

They couldn’t hold a candle to Star Wars.

However, my first screening became irrelevant after my second. I watched it at the Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Sadly, it was demolished in 2001. It’s now a hospital parking lot.

In 1977, it was still in its heyday — and it had a CinemaScope screen.

A CinemaScope theater.

You’re probably unfamiliar with CinemaScope. It was a very short-lived widescreen format which had a huge curved screen. The effect was the create a more immersive experience by attempting to cover the viewer’s periphery.

Boy, did it ever.

The interior auditorium of the Indian Hills was circular in shape and seated 810 patrons, with 662 on the main floor and 148 on the balcony.

When I arrived for my second showing, the house was already packed. There was absolutely nowhere to sit except dead-center of the front row.

In modern theaters, one avoids such seats due to severe parallax distortion. The Indian Hills, however, had a significant distance between the front row and the screen.

I saw in the front row, dead center …

It was an experience I’ll never forget. The curved screen made it completely fill my field of view, including my periphery.

The experience was barely describable — which is part of why I’m making the commentary. I actually became nauseous during the Trench Run.

To follow along with the amazing adventure of a 12-year-old watching Star Wars in CinemaScope, go to:

We’ll be playing a selection of Murray Gold’s excellent scores from the modern Doctor Who series. However, it will not be an ordinary orchestra performing it — but rather the Doctor Who Fan Orchestra.

Doctor Who Fan Orchestra is a collaborative project by musicians all over the world. They’re sent sheet music for their particular part and record it alone. They never hear the finished work until it’s edited together.

If you want to join the Orchestra, visit https://doctorwhofanorchestra.blogspot.com/ and simply wait for their next call for musicians. They need all kinds, including vocals. If you’re a good musician, go to the site and sign up!

This episode of Tales From SYL Ranch is dedicated to William N. Grigg.

The libertarian community was saddened by the loss of William N. Grigg on Wednesday.

We thought about changing our programming. It would have been easy to do an entire show of his Greatest Hits.

But we know Bill wouldn’t want that. He’d have told us not to bother on his account.

Rather than altering the songs, we’ve put them in an order we think that Bill would have approved. That’s why it’s Shania Twain week on Tales From SYL Ranch: because that’s what it was always going to be.

A podcast can be many things. Sometimes it needs to remind mourners to celebrate. Not Bill’s death, of course — but rather the man that he was.

If there’s one thing Bill knew about, it was rocking this country. He’d have rocked every country right out of this world, if at humanly possible — libertarian-style.

This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.

We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy. After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).

This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.

We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and a smattering of amusing bits throughout.

After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).

On Sunday’s Tales From SYL Ranch, we bring you a generous collection of filk songs.

Wikipedia defines filk music as a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has been active since the early 1950s, and played primarily since the mid-1970s.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says that filk music is the greatest achievement in the history of lifekind. It is creative, often amusing, and a balm for the soul.

I’ve filled the entire two hours, such that there isn’t any room for even introductions.

The tracklist is:

“Banned From Argo” by Leslie Fish and the Dehorn Crew. This is from my private collection, from a 1977 LP. The sound quality leaves everything to be desired.

“The Saga Begins Live” by “Weird Al” Yankovic

“PanGalactic Gargle Blaster Blues” by Diana Gallagher

“The Hero Of Canton” by Bandit Jack Potty

“The Chef They Call Jayne” by Tom Smith

“I’m On Firefly” by Tom Smith

“The Engineer’s Hymn” by Bill Boyd

“Where, Oh Where, Has C’Thulhu Gone” by Leslie Fish

“Bones’ Song” by Bill Mills

“Luke, Don’t Kiss Your Sister” by Captain Bran

“He’s Dead, Jim” by Julia Ecklar

“Waking Up Jedi” by Tom Smith

X-Minus One: “The Green Hills Of Earth”

“Highly Illogical” by Leonard Nimoy

“The Tribble Is a Fuzzy Beast” by Leslie Fish

“The U.S.S. Make Shit Up” by Voltaire

“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” by William Shatner

“Dragoncon” by Leslie Fish

“Mister Anderson” – Tony Fabris

“The Ballad of Apollo 13” by Julia Ecklar

“What’s Up Spock?” by Luke Ski

“The Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins” by Leonard Nimoy

“Theme From Star Trek” by Nichelle Nichols

“Black Powder & Alcohol” by Leslie Fish

“Yoda Live” by “Weird Al” Yankovic

Be aware that due to the massive volume of filk songs, I’m only presenting a tiny fraction. I’ve come so close to filling two hours that I don’t even have time for introductions.

After a couple of weeks of symphonic scores (and increasingly shrill rants), we dive into warmer waters — only to discover a transvestite in the soup.

It’s Rocky Horror week on Tales From SYL Ranch.

It’s rather pointless to go through the tracklist. The first hour is entirely Rocky Horror, with the songs in the order of the stage play/movie.

The versions of the songs are culled from a number of different sources. “I Can Make You A Man,” for example, comes from the Original Roxy Cast. If you’ve never heard this version, it makes far more sense than that which was filmed.

The mix also goes international in a couple of places.

Shock Treatment

Beyond the first hour is the few tracks of Shock Treatment that seem to stand to the test of time better than others.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, Shock Treatment is a nominal sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It uses a few of the same characters (played by different actors) and ignores Rocky Horror entirely.

Today they’d call it a “soft reboot.” It’s more aptly an ill-advised attempt to re-capture a cult film’s weirdness that went through so many production problems as to become a mess.

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